The Team House - Task Force Orange Operator (ISA) | Joe England | Ep. 396

Episode Date: February 7, 2026

Joe England is a retired Army veteran with an unconventional path through special operations, including Special Forces support, service in one of the Army’s most secret special mission units (TFO/ISA), and later Army aviation as a helicopter pilot. In this episode, he shares hard-earned lessons on selection, leadership, identity, mental health recovery, and how those experiences shaped his mission today through his Stoic Viking platform.Find Joe here: ⬇️https://www.youtube.com/@TheStoicVikinghttps://www.instagram.com/stoicviking2025/?hl=enToday's Sponsors:Qualia ⬇️Take control of your cellular health today. Go to https://qualialife.com/HOUSE to get 50% off and save an extra 15% with the code HOUSE.Miracle Made Sheets ⬇️Go to https://TryMiracle.com/HOUSE to try Miracle Made sheets today. You’ll save over 40%, and when you use promo code HOUSE, you’ll get an extra 20% off plus a FREE 3-piece towel set.GhostBed⬇️https://www.ghostbed.com/houseFOR 25% off! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------For ad free video and audio and access to live streams and Eyes On Geopolitics...JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouseTo help support the show and for all bonus content including:-live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video-early access to shows-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseSupport the show here:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse___________________________________________________Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured__________________________________Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/——————————————————————Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouseSocial Media: ⬇️The Team House Instagram:https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_linkThe Team House Twitter:https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePodJack’s Instagram:https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_linkJack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21Team House Discord: ⬇️https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6SubReddit: ⬇️https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"0:00 Start1:11 Born Into Service: Family Legacy + Germany Years3:52 Head-On Crash Survivor: TBI, Brain Recovery, and Comeback7:34 2005 Surge Era: Why He Enlisted Anyway9:27 Farsi Linguist Path: The Backdoor to 5th Group11:01 Rejected, Then Approved: The Airborne Packet Gamble13:06 SAD-A Explained: How SIGINT Hunts Targets and Protects Teams23:38 Inside ISA Selection: The Most Psychological Pipeline?29:03 Tactical Detachment: Freefall School + Blue vs Green Culture1:04:08 Mental Health Rock Bottom: Suicide Plan, Dog, and Turning Point1:13:01 CID Investigation Fallout1:36:58 Unfiltered Q&A: TFO Myths, OPE Changes, RRC InterfacingBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

The Team House with your hopes, Jack Murphy and David Park. Hi, everyone, I'm Jack Murphy. This is The Team House. I'm here with our guest today, Joe England. Joe had a very interesting career, an unconventional career in several ways. He served as a SOTA in Special Forces, and then he went on to be a SIGANT guy in the unit known as TFO or ISA, one of the Army Special Mission Units. and then he became a helicopter pilot.

And today he runs a YouTube channel that talks about health and wellness, mental health. And also, he's recently retired and had a bit of an upset on the way out the door that we'll talk about a little later in this interview. But Joe, thank you so much for taking some time this evening to talk to us. Absolutely. I appreciate it. So look, man, we were talking a little bit before the show. I'd love to hear a little bit about your childhood and growing up.

I mean, you told me you have a really extensive military history in your family. Yes. So, yeah, I come from a long line of pretty much officers, at least until May, dating back to the Civil War. My great-grandfather was in Spanish-American War, He charged up San Juan Hill, World War I, did a number of different things. And then he had three sons who were all officers at World War II, including my grandfather, who was one of Patton's company tank commanders. The other brother was in the 82nd.

And I believe the third one was some sort of artillery officer. I'm not as aware. And then my father was a colonel who started an artillery. and then he ended in military intelligence. And then my brother was a 18 alpha who ended up becoming, he led a dive team out of first group. That's awesome. And you guys, you know, because you were in a military family,

you guys grew up in Germany, right? Yes. So about six months after I was born, we moved to Germany. So from about then until we were there for 10 years, but we did have a two-year sit in between where we actually moved to Alaska. So the first time that I moved to the continental United States

was when I was about 13 years old. And we moved to Seattle, Washington, where my father would end up retiring at Fort Lewis, McCord Base. And you and your brothers were very involved in soccer from growing up in Europe? Yes. So when we lived in Georgia, Germany, I think my father had, which I would always thank him for, is that instead of living on

the American basis, he chose to live on the German economy. And Germany is just like a collection of small towns. And like over here, you play for soccer clubs. Well, in Germany, you play for your town. And a town that maybe have like a couple thousand people and maybe you, it's like only, you could drive through this town in like a few minutes. That town would have practice field, everything. And you would play for your town. So by the time we came to the United States, we were probably at least a year or two ahead of all the Americans we played with. And because of that, out of the five of us, four of us went to college on soccer scholarships. And I mean, it sounds like you were having a really good time, too, in college, you know, playing soccer. But really you had this accident,

not your fault, of course, but got into this car accident that kind of like it did shape the rest of your life, I feel like. Yeah, it definitely changed everything that I essentially had a plan for. I think I had delusions of Granger that I was going to finish college, become a professional soccer player. But so I was driving home, this was my freshman year of college, and it was driving home. We were going, it was like 3.30 in the morning.

We were going to my girlfriend's place who is attending Udub, which is on the north side of Seattle. And we were on the south side of Seattle. I remember at one point in the drive, and then I woke up in a hospital bed. And I was like my, I was, I believe it was a respirator in, so obviously I couldn't talk. I was basically couldn't move anything. And, you know, I eventually when I come to my dad's there, I signaled for him because I

realized I can't talk. And then I ask him if my girlfriend was okay because she was in the car because I don't remember anything. Just remember waking up. I'm in a hospital bed. and I was just afraid that I killed her. And luckily, what I wrote was like, where's Karen? And he's like, she's fine.

And then I was like, seemingly relieved, passed out, woke up like 12 hours later. And then that's when my dad would tell me that I was in a head-on car accident, drunk gut driver going the wrong way down the freeway, where we apparently I turned the car at the last second. We went headlight to headlight. And then the swung around and all the power hit the left side of my car, which he's the car, through my elbow, cutting that in half.

I had pieces of car that went into my arm and then it just kept traveling. 29 stitches on this arm, ruptured spleen, 29 staples and take that out, and then a brain hemorrhage, which was obviously the worst dangerous. And actually, I still have contusions

on my shin bones, and other parts of my bones, that even 21 years later, are still visible. So, and then, yeah, and so the brain hemorrhage, I suffered a lot of brain damage I was assessed to have degraded to a second grade to math level,

which math was actually my best subject. I attended AP calculus, took the AP calculus exam in high school, and had major speech problems, memory problems. And, yeah, I was a mess. And then tried to go back to school less than a month later, and that did not end well. I dropped out within a week. Because of, you know, what we now know,

I don't know if they were applying the terms so much or as much was understood, but I mean, veterans know a lot about traumatic brain injury now. And you had one before you went into the military. And it sounds like it really affected you. It did. And I was little concerned. And that was the hardest part of my recovery because physically, like most of all my injuries, with exception to the brain hemorrhage, they just kind of patched me up and send me on way.

And like, everything would recover. Like the elbow and bone grew back. My abdominal wall obviously reconnected. But, you know, I was so frustrated because, one, I didn't even know if my cognitive abilities would ever return. And then secondly, like, what can I do about it? It's not like physical where I can, you know, I can go to the gym and start working out. Like, who knows what I can do? And then my family started blaming my girlfriend that it was her fault that we got hit by a drunk driver.

Because if I wasn't dating her, I wouldn't have. on that road. And so just all together, then I got frustrated and I was like, screw it. So six months after the car accident, I went to a recruiter. And then nine months later, nine months, I think it was nine months to the day or almost to the day, I shipped off for basic. So it is the lovely year of 2005 during the surge. And you walk in there, your body's still a mess. And they're like, we got something for you. No problem. Yeah. So I tried to, you know, Obviously, I saw the movie Green Berets when I was 10 years old with John Wayne. I was like, this is what you got to be.

So try to do the AT&X program. But obviously, you know, they do the whole medical thing. And obviously you cannot hide this giant scar, which is like, you know, like 12 inches. And so obviously they learn I have a splenectomy. But I didn't know anything about the process. So I didn't think it was going to be an issue. I was already back to normal running and everything. But it turned out that there's a list of things that disqualifying you can make.

Airborne Ranger and Special Forces, but one of the only things that do qualify you just from Special Forces is the absence of a spleen. And I, you know, I think I was told, this was more of like an observation, but that this medical doctrine was based back in the Vietnam era. It's a part of immune system, but it helps fight fevers, and that's really all about it does.

And so when I got turned down with that, I tried to acquire with the recruiter, hey, can I get a waiver, right? And he was like, yeah, no MEPs doctor is going to assume that risk. But randomly he knew that there was a back route to get to special forces. And he told me, he's like, once you get there, you have a much better chance of getting a waiver once you're within a group. And I was like, well, how do I do that? And he was like, well, you can go be a linguist.

And I was like, a linguist. I don't, I'm trying to be a greener, right? Why would I be a linguist, right? And he was like, well, you get to go to California for a year, learn a language, and you get your associates degree. And when I heard California, I was like, okay, I like what you're saying. And so that's what I end up going with, got Persian Farsi, did the course in a year. Didn't roll back, actually, passed. I actually almost maxed the test.

That's awesome. Despite all my cognitive abilities. Yeah, yeah. And that's when I submitted for my first airborne packet, which ended up become a slight of an issue. Yeah, tell us about that. So at the end of DLI, so about a month or two before we were about to finish, that's when they're like, hey, if you want to go to group, you have to submit an airborne packet. And then you have to submit a part of that, you submit a packet that says, I'm volunteering for group, which I was surprised to find out that most linguists don't want to go to group. And of course, I would learn later on in my career that as a linguist, there's no better job than being a saw day.

Absolutely no better job. So I do this airborne packet. I volunteer for group, but I still have to be approved. So as I am going to out process after I passed my test and essentially graduated on my final day, I go in there and I haven't received my airborne package. So I go in to go see the doctor to get my final signature from my out processing. And she's like, oh, and by the way, I have your airborne packet. I was like, okay, cool. She's like, you were rejected.

And I'm like, I was rejected. She's like, yeah, because you had a brain hemorrhage, you are rejected from going to airborne. And I was admitted, like, at first I was like, devastating. I was like, what do I do? But then she puts the failed airborne packet on my medical records, which were not digital, you know, because this is 2006. And then I start walking outside and I'm thinking about like, what am I going to do? and then I look to my left and I see a trash can as I'm walking out and just hits me.

And I just walk over. No, and I just turn the medical record and I let the failed import package just slide right into the trash can. Yes. And then I PCS to San Angeles, Texas for the second part of our training. And I go in there to the medical facility and I'm like, I want to apply for airborne vaccine. They give me an airborne packet and they get to the part where says, have you ever applied for your airborne this packet for? And I checked.

No. And then got to the part where have you ever had a brain injury or TVI? And I said, nope. And I was approved two weeks later. And I learned that my first PCS after all my training, the airport training, I would be fifth special forces group. Your attempts at misconduct here clearly allude to your capacity to be an Army spy. I think you passed the test. Yeah.

That's actually, yeah. Now that I think about it, that's an interesting thing that I will actually discuss about the particular part of the packet. Because at this point, and I can get into that later, but at this point, you obviously don't want to tell the military like everything because you'll get screwed. But when it came to the ISA packet, you were encouraged to actually tell them the truth. And actually in the portion of the packet, I'll probably get it ahead of myself, but they actually tell you that whatever you say will not go back to the regular army. I hope that's true. Yeah, at least it wasn't the time. So you move on to the next phase of your training, and before we move on, I think we should,

I'd like to ask you for the viewers out there, the listeners, do you want to tell them what a SOTA is and what a SOTA does? Yes, so a SOTA is a, it stands for Special Operations Team Alpha. And at the time, only linguists were allowed to be special operate, or SOTA. If you were a singles, because a linguist is actually a cryptological linguist, right? So not only are you a language,

but you actually have a Siggett portion of your job, and that's the cryptological part. There's another MOS that goes alongside it, and that's the cryptological analyst. And they, at the time, were only allowed to be special operations

bravos or sought bees, which are the analyst portions of that. So, like, Sawd-As were the collectors and you would send your signals information that you collected back to the Saad-Bs. But the interesting thing about, because every other linguist would be in some sort of facility, the NSA, or some sort of fob. But sawd-ays were the close-access signals collectors. So all the devices and everything that you were given and how you had to do stuff, you actually had to be on-site with the teams. So during deployments, instead of being deployed with either the battalion element or the company element,

all Saudis were deployed with the teams. And you were attached to an ODA, which ended up being amazing because you spend your entire deployment as just an extension of essentially these ODAs. And you get to sort of live that life as much as closely as you can. Ever wake up sweaty, freezing, or just uncomfortable? The temperature in your bedroom can make or break your sleep. That's why I switched to Miracle Made Sheets. They're inspired by NASA technology and use silver-infused temperature-regulating fabric to help you sleep perfectly all night long.

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Your body's built to repair itself. Qualia just helps it do that better. A big thanks to Qualia for sponsoring this episode. I guess we'll get into it a little bit, but would it be fair to say that one part of the job is offensively looking for the bad guys? And also maybe part of it is also like force protection like I'm listening to the bad guys. Absolutely. So that's actually how the sawday job started because, you know, before cell phones and everything like that, sawdays were basically forced protection because they'd go out with the teams.

And obviously they would get on, you know, like the PRD 13 and all these radio interiors. interception devices. And that's how they would detect if they were going to get ambushed or not, because usually there would be some sort of radio traffic like, hey, they're coming up. So that was the job of Sa'd A. But then rolling into 2000, the early 2000s, when SIGN really started to go into the cell phone, stuff like that. And that type of signal is actually short range. Like radios have a much longer range, but cell phones, the way they talk to towers, have a much short range. So what you end up having to be is, so you ended up becoming not more just for protection, you actually became offensive, at least especially in the intelligence roles. And it was kind of like the heyday

of when, you know, we had the kings of the kingdom, you know, there was less to no encryption. And, you know, it was like the wild wall west when it came to. It was things were easy. they would later become much, much harder. And our job became, luckily, I had left at this point, but almost became later on, like, obsolete as the technology upgraded from 2G to 3G and then 4G. And by the time we got to 5G, there was no more job, at least in that portion of it. And you get sent to the Sadee at Fifth Group.

And what is it like from there? I mean, now you're kind of integrating with the teams going through the pre-mission training and deployments are coming up. Yeah, so we got, they chose which ODA that we would attach with first. So on my first deployment, I technically, we spent like half the deployment with one ODA and we spent the second half with a different ODA. So the one that we were getting attached to first, when we did our pre-mission deployment training, we were actually with them the entire time.

So we could, you know, really start to integrate with them, you know, because, you know, as you know, when you're running around in like Humvees, because especially 2007, we were, I think everybody else wasn't allowed to run around at Humvees except the SF guys. And usually, because they still needed guys back, sometimes they could only man two Humvees. But with the Saad A team, we always could have three. So they definitely used this as extra guns.

And, you know, so we got a lot of pre-mission deployment training. And then I got, we actually went on the deployment, and there was the 18 Zulu. his name was Boomer. And Boomer instantly took a liking to me. He was impressed with me. He learned that I, being a saudi or being a linguist was not my original goal. I wanted to be an 18 X-ray.

And, you know, and when the battalion commander and the Italian CSM did their visits to all the team houses during that deployment, he arranged for me to have a one-on-one meeting for both battalion commander and the battalion CSM about me potentially. becoming an 18th series. And that interview went really well. The battalion CSM took it upon himself to research my waiver because at this point between them, Boomer, they all felt that I would make a very good green beret, I guess a good candidate for it. So they found out I needed a, it needed to be signed by a general officer, which everybody

knows or who doesn't know that the highest ranking officer in a group is a colonel, so they had to go above group. And, you know, unfortunately that waiver would end up, it would be approved by his deputy, but in between the week that the deputy needed to prove it and the general officer need to prove it, somebody died in the Q-course, if I remember correctly, from a supposed snake bite, which they then was told, then I was then told that the commander did not want to assume the risk for somebody who had a weakened

or compromised immune system, I believe is the correct verbiage that they used. That might just have been kind of a kick in the nuts. And then you went during, kind of like during and as all of that is transpiring, you're also rotating back overseas

with this team, right? Say that one more time. As all this this waiver submission is going through the process, you're also getting ready to to deploy a second time with the team. Yes, yes. So we came back, we went out for eight months, came back for six months,

because first group replaced us. And then we, but we knew before we went on this first deployment, we were doing back-to-back deployments. So we had six months in between and two months prior to, so one, I did a second waiver thinking that I, if I had stronger recommendations that they would prove it, but that was not to be the case. and then but during that training

I went to what was called Prometheus Group at the time because it was done by the Pramidious Group company but it was a pilot course which would later become the advanced SOCOM advanced SOCOM's advanced GSM SIGA course but was the pilot course for it and during that training that training was run by both green and orange operators and support personnel

And the course director was a former TFO command sergeant major of a squadron. And at the end of those eight weeks, he pulled me aside on the last day where they're giving out the certifications. And he told me that he had heard about the issues of my waivers, how I couldn't get to SFAS. And he was like, hey, we've been really impressed with you. we think that you have what it takes. And he made the joke of, why should you skip JV and come straight to varsity. And he was like, you know, would you want to be an operator, right?

And I was like, yes, that's the exact what I'm going to do. He's like, all right, here's the recruiting information for at that time the recruiters that were doing operators. I believe they were separate at the time. And so I went and on the second deployment, that's when I started filling out this ridiculous 40-page application. and submitted it, I think, right, I finished it like right towards the end of deployment.

And yeah, in that packet, you're told, and you're actually told by the recruiter, to, you can reveal everything, and they won't have any sort of ramifications. And at this time, this end up being true for me because that's when I actually revealed that I had had some issues and the stuff that I had sort of hidden from the Army, and that I wasn't the saint.

But apparently that worked because they approved my packet. Wow, great. And I went to selection the following April or ISA operator selection. Before we jump into that, I just want to ask you, where was it that you deployed with this ODA? If there's any interesting stories from that time that you'd like to tell. Oh, absolutely. So both deployments were actually in the Diyala province of Iraq, which is, it's like east of Baghdad, but it's along the Iranian border.

So you're really kind of on the edge of the world because there were no team houses east of us. It was us and then the Iranian border. But the second deployment was awesome for me because a boomer decided. that he wanted to be on his team, to just be an extension of his team, and he told the battalion commander, I want Joe and Joe only. And if he's like, if you send the entire Saudi team,

I don't want any of them, right? And the battalion commander was like, all right, cool, you get just Joe. And I got to be the sole attachment to that team and Boomer was awesome, the team was awesome, and they never treated me like a support personnel. I almost felt like I was like 18 OJT. It was an amazing deployment.

I was an extension of that team. And to be honest, Boomer, even at certain times, even treated me as like one of the seniors, which I absolutely love and I will be grateful of to this day because it was probably one of my favorite appointments I ever had in my career. That's awesome. And so moving forward,

we get into selection. I know there's some parts of it that they try to keep on the download, but what are you allowed to say about the social? collection course? You know, it's very, so let's just say ISA selection was like in a lot of things, like when they were created, right, they cloned a lot of things from Delta and they changed certain things, right? Like I would say that CAG is probably slightly more physical.

Ours is probably like more of a mental, you know, thing. But like you probably heard the difference between the talk and the long, but very movement, but it's not the quake to 40 miles. It's slightly shorter than that. But it was, I think it was like, it's usually between four and five weeks. And it was the hardest part about like that style of selection is it's you, you don't have any negative or positive reinforcement. Like nobody yells at you the entire time.

And almost everything, minus like a few days, everything is individual. So what I found was that, especially from a psychological standpoint of view, this was the hardest type of selection you could go into because when you're getting yelled at and people are telling you to quit and you've got your buddies next to you, you kind of kind of sort of band on to each other and be like, you know what, F you. I'm not going to quit, right? But in this environment, one, you're only given instructions. once and they do it completely stoic right like they just say you know they give you um the instructions

you're basically giving the instructions once and then they tell you to go to do the best as you can as fast as you can they don't tell your times they don't tell you if you've passed the only reason you even know if you fail is like every day when you muster for an event they tell you to get in these individual trucks and then you quickly learn as people start getting kicked out that if you ever get in a truck by yourself, it's not good, right? So, but, but because you don't, you're, you're, you really have to have this level of mental fortitude because nobody's telling you if you're doing well. Nobody's telling you if you're, you're sucking. You just have to believe in yourself and you just concentrate on the event and then just concentrate on the event in front of you. Don't think about like,

oh, we're two, week through, because you, you have no idea when this is going to stop. Like everything, every portion of the selection, you have no idea when it's going to end and when it does, it's this huge surprise. And then you're on to the next portion, which is you had, like, it goes places that you never thought selections would go to. Like, it is probably one of,

I would say it's a more unique selection than Cags is. Because they sort of like test to you on some of the skills that they'd like operators in the unit to have, right, to see how you respond under stress. Yes. I think this logical model

but they also want to implement that you want to that unit right like that more kind of like operative type of you know job so there's like

things within it that are more centered towards that and we have I'm pretty like intimate knowledge because like of the difference between hours

Cags because later in OTC, we actually do our tactile portion of OTC at Camp Dawson. And we run the same lanes. But luckily, not as selection. Like, we're actually doing a training, which later on, I thought it was good at Landab until I went to that place. So you make it through selection. I mean, that must have been a big relief to go through the board and all that other stuff and finally getting picked up.

Yes. the board is the hardest part of selection, my personal opinion. Traumatic, I would almost say. Because they dig into every aspect of your life and pick it apart? I would say, what I would say is you are presented with no win situations. And it is how you deal with no win situations. It is, it is a hostile board. like when I when I finished when I got out of the board and I went into the waiting room while they deliberated

I knew I'd failed I knew I was done like there was no way I went into this little this room looked kind of like a boiler room and I banged my head against this brick wall and I kept saying like you're an idiot you're an idiot like how could you screw that up but I walk back in there and they're like we'd like to invite you to the next phase of training wow that came as a surprise The next phase was the free fall course? The next phase was the free fall course? No, that actually happened after OTC. Our OTC is a little bit longer.

It's just shy of a year. I think it's like 10, like 11 months. And once we finish OTC, then you're all the operators get to eventually go to free fall. and then as soon as you get there it's an O amount like obviously the people who've been there the longest but the one exception is the tactical detachment and and most people don't get to go to the tactile detachment until they've been usually about average like three years like you have to you already have to be basically senior operative status and mainly I think maybe the size maybe the way I look

you know I don't quite fit in a lot of places but I was made as an exception and within less than a year, I, well, I knew coming out of OTC that they were going to put me sort of in the express lane to go to the tactical attachment and I ended up probably six to nine months after I finished OTC, I was officially in there and then I got put to the top of the OML for Free Fall School. So within a year, I was in Free Fall Basic course and within In a year of that, I did Freepall Jumpmaster down at Depp Groo in Virginia Beach. This time of year, the pace doesn't slow down, but you still need to. The calendar's packed, the weather's changing, and your body's reminding you that it's time to rest and reset.

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one of the things that I really enjoyed about this particularly is just because a part of that job is you actually because I say kind of does its own thing with its own operations everything like that but the tactile attachment actually supports blue and green so we actually were like on the jorts cycle and so I actually got to spend quite a bit of time with both green and blue, which, you know, I felt like I had a unique perspective because I kind of got to see inside all three of these units, both orange, blue, and green.

And you get to see the cultural differences, which are, you know, pretty shocking, I think, especially with how the difference between how blue and green treats their support personnel, that's kind of a huge difference. I've heard that green loves their support guys and blue hates them. Yeah. It was explained to me in a very good way.

Green sees their support people is that they can't do their job without their support guys. Blue sees their support guys as they're in their way. Right. And they have to tolerate them. And it's so, and one of the biggest, I'll give you. So at some point, they made a mandatory for all assault. to go to their intelligence squadron over at Green. And because of that, like when you showed up,

because when I started going, they'd already been implementing this. So when I'd show up and almost always we were, we would be attached to the reckey teams. And, but when we would be there and we would have like our various different equipment and stuff like that, we'd have assaulters who'd come over who just got back from the Intel squadron, like, oh, dude, I used that. And it'd be super excited to talk to you about Intel. stuff. Here you've got these

badass assaters who like want to get in with the intel. And let's just say that never happened to blue. Yeah, yeah. I mean maybe it was you that told me this actually, but someone pointed out to me that you know, Delta makes a point of

putting operators in those intelligence positions and they take it really seriously. Like this is part of your career field, you're going to be really good at it. And it's resulted in, you know, increasing capabilities, of course. Absolutely. So what I have found is that, you know, both assaulters at both blue and green, like, they

are some of the most impressive individuals that I've ever met, right? And especially with like with the mentality and the level of maturity that you find at green, when you take these like, you know, because I almost think of like tier one assaulters is like almost equivalent like Olympic athletes. They are the best. They have climbed that ladder. There's nobody better, right? You take someone who already has that mentality and then you're like, hey, here's a different job once you do this, right?

And these guys, because they have that mentality, they see how intelligence important intelligence, they go in there and they become some of the best. And then they do with their talent. You know, I will, you know, this might be a hot take, but like I would actually say that the Intel guys who are the assaulters at Green would probably be superior to any guy that you find a diet and say. Wow. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty incredible that you'd even think that, that they must have come a far way. As far as your job, you're in the tactical squadron. How does your job differ from what you were doing previously as a SOTA? So, yeah, let's see how much like that. So it's, so even within the tactical side of thing, I still did stuff outside of the tactical side of things.

And if you understand that, you know, essentially that, you know, because everybody has pretty much general knowledge that the ISA was sort of like started as like the Army's version of the CIA. So if you can kind of think about like what the CIA does and, you know, especially when it comes to covers and clandestine work, so you have to do, you do that type of stuff. And, you know, learning how to, you know, be somebody else for a deployment is that is definitely a skill that you have to learn. And I can just tell you it's not like it in the movies, you know, you have to, you know, you don't have this, like, this, like, team who comes up with all this stuff for you.

you kind of have to make it up on the fly and you have to do your own research. And, you know, so that's, that is definitely an interesting thing aside of things. And then while I was there, you know, because they have, traditionally they have two main operational squadrons.

You have the operational squadron, they have the significant squadron. And what they quickly realized is that they wanted to start making full spectrum operators. which you had human guys who could do SIGMT and you could have SIGT guys doing human. And because we deploy in such small teams,

they wanted to be able to have maximum capability in an individual. So like there started to be, oh, definitely a crossover. One of my really good friends was actually the first S-I guy to go to the farm. That's pretty interesting. And I mean, I think there's a couple of interesting topics around this, but one of them is, you know, you had already talked about how in Delta, some of the operators had taken very well to the Intel side. I'm wondering when you tried to, or not you personally, but when the unit tried to mix Humant and SIGN, how did those personalities work, you know, kind of on an individual level? Like there's both the personality aspect and also just the sheer amount of information that you can hold in your head and skills that you can maintain proficiency on.

No, that's actually a great question because I think not all SIGA guys traditionally have the personality to do human, right? I definitely think it's easier for a human guy to learn SIGM, you know, it's definitely, because it requires a certain type of personality to do human. So they were very selective on who they started to cross-trans. But the goal was to eventually cross-training. And also because especially during certain times, like the unit would be more employed when it came to certain intelligence disciplines. And so when, let's just say that OS didn't really,

the human guys weren't having much of a job, and they were jealous because maybe the SIGN guys were more gainfully employed and had more missions. They were like, well, let us, well, let's try some of the SIGN stuff and they'll get us working again. And then they kind of went back and forth forth and vice versa. So it was an interesting, it was interesting to see the transition within the unit and then, you know, also the unit trying to find its own identity, if you will, because

they struggled with that for years, I probably still struggling with them. Is that because their capabilities are duplicated in other parts of J-Soc or? So this is my understanding and this is what I was told of what was going on. We were there. So obviously, ISA was originally created to, and obviously you read about this in Killer Elite and a couple other books, but was to be that element of intelligence for both blue and green. And because we had a horrible relationship with the CIA in the 80s. But eventually the CIA came around and they're like, you guys are doing good stuff. And it's kind of like our or what was the analogy I used.

The strange stepfather came home and it was like, hey, do you want to go around the world to have bin Laden with us? And we were like, hell yeah, dad. And so there was a time where I think that, and this happened like before I got there. So I hear about this like, he's out there in 2010. And this already was like, they were still doing it when I showed up, but it was being calmed down at this point.

They were transitioning away from Operation CIA, but for a good portion of the 2000s, they were running around the world of the CIA, but not supporting blue and green. And that is my understanding was one of the main catalysts of why blue and green end up developing their own organic squadrons. So by that time that we kind of sort of ended our crusade with the agency, when we came back and we're like,

hey, we're back. And they were like, now we're good, bro. Right, right. We're good. And then when you show up, right, and you see what they're doing, you're like, yeah, you guys are good. You really not that much use for us. How do you think that bodes for the future of the unit?

Do you think they're going to find their identity or their niche in the community? You know, they, but around the time that I left, they were definitely trying to find their specific niche. right and I think that there were some good ideas um but I think that I don't know this is my personal opinion when it comes to intelligence-centric organizations there is especially when it comes to personalities um I find that there is the personalities can be a little more toxic and probably intelligence just in general I feel like it is a catty can be a very catty performance profession. And I definitely, of the three units, I definitely think that CAG is the most professional

and the most mature. And I think that there were some innate personality problems within ISA, which I think is still issues. Occasionally when I still talk to people who are still in the unit, they tell me all that I essentially left at a very good time. Yeah. Yeah. I think the the difference in a lot of ways is that the intelligence business is kind of people doing their own things, so to speak, whereas, you know, you know from your experience, being on an ODA or a Ranger platoon or a SEAL platoon, it's very much a team, you know, a team event that you're doing. Yeah, yeah. And then a lot of what they're doing is they're in like, you know, occasionally there's like solo

missions, but they're like two, maybe three-man teams, right? And you have quite a lot of responsibility. And there's definitely like it is a level, it is not an easy mission. Like it's, you know, it's very, you know, you're out on your own. And especially whatever status that you might deploy in, you know, complicates things even further. And it is definitely a very hard environment. It's definitely, it is a tier one intelligence organization, right? But there are, what I found, there were some inherent problems.

with that. And then honestly, like, you know, you look at almost every, like, for example, take INSCOM, right? You have all these intelligence overarching umbrella organizations who no longer have a job. Like INSCOM doesn't have a job because every operational unit in the military has its own organic intelligence, right? And so ISA is sort of like the INSCOM of tier one if you want, right? And it's still, luckily, it still does its own thing. It has its own mission, right? But the portion of where it supported the other two has been greatly diminished. And you did a whole bunch of deployments with the unit. What are you able to tell us about where they sent you and what they had you doing? I can't really, especially based on certain missions that were in different statuses. But I would probably say that one of the things when I'm fifth group, you know, especially you think about this, this 2007, 2009. You know, fifth group was stuck in Iraq, right? And this was, I was, I did my first appointment before the change of the SOF agreement, where you had unilateral operations.

And then when we came back to the second deployment, we were doing bilateral operations, which we also needed warrants from Iraqi judges, which, you know, it took us a few months to realize that we had to go out of the tribal region because, you know, you'd submit a warrant through a judge and then suddenly you had an IED waiting for you, right? We quickly learned that we had to go out of the region away from that tribe to submit warrants for judges, actually, but it just completely slowed the tempo. And at that time, you know, we heard that like Afghanistan was still popping off.

We were like, oh, can we go somewhere else? But we were fifth group, you know, that we owned Iraq. Like, we were stuck there. So one of the things that I wanted to do, because that second deployment, wow, it was amazing because I had that great team experience with Boomer and the team to Soul attachment. I luckily deployments minus a single deployment was in other, continents. And I actually probably spent majority of my time in Africa.

Doing the tactical SIGAN side for other JSOC elements. To actually I did both. I did I did both the the typical job that you would think of that an ISA guy does and I also did the tactile thing because I was you know I was single, didn't have any kids. wasn't married. And so anytime that there was a slot that opened up another detachment or somebody needed to be relieved for whatever American Red Cross or somebody needed to come on for whatever reason, I was usually the go-to guy to fill in for those people. So, which I, looking back in hindsight, I really liked because I went on probably more deployments

and more varying different types of missions, regardless of what I look like, which I don't think would have happened if they weren't desperate and needed somebody to replace, then I was always available when I was on certain aspects of the George cycle when I was available. From that time, are there any stories that you're able to tell? And I understand

you need to be vague about where you were, when it happened, etc. But if you could walk us through, if you have any stories, you're able to tell things that were close calls or got a little dicey? You know, it's really it's really hard to go into like any of that without especially during that time because

without you know it'd be really hard to really say I will I will tell you so at everything that I did at at the unit my favorite thing probably still this day is about four years after I passed election I got to come back as cadre for selection. And when you get to go behind the thing and you get to be the super stoic guy who, because they do it all the time, like candidates will come up and they'll be like,

you know, they'll try to ask you for, to reiterate the instructions. And you just sit there, you know, with sunglasses on, you got your, you know, your shirt on, you just go, candidate, what were your instructions? And that's all you have to say. And you get to see everything behind the scenes. And that was really cool,

because while you're there, you also learn, because to be, you learn the history of our selection and how it related to Cags, how they changed things. And then you also see like they actually have the reasons why they chose the psychology versus like how they went different than SFAS and various different things like that. But no, I would definitely say that the hardest part of deployment. I would actually say was being in alias.

And I will say this, like if you're, I would say that one of the transitions that I feel like it kind of screws with you the most is that when you come back and you've essentially been somebody else for longer than you were yourself, it kind of like messes with you a little bit. And, you know, all the times, we always joke about it. Like you'll come home and you'll be with your

at work and then you'll go to the local food truck and you'll be like, oh, you know, quarter and they'd be like, for who? And then you'd give out the wrong name because you'd been somebody else for so long. Yeah, it's one of these situations where you wake up in the morning and you're not

sure who you are. Like, what's my name guy? Yeah. Because they teach you early on, like the best way to do that type of stuff is you have to believe the lie. Right. And This is in like every CIA like handbook out there. Like, you know, this is no secret.

But like that's definitely the most effective way. So when you go around it, you basically, you believe the lie. And then when you come back, it's a little bit of an adjustment. Yeah. I mean, I can see. I mean, thankfully, I think, you know, you were single at the time. But, I mean, it's especially hard on the families. It definitely can be.

Yeah. And I can see why living the type of life you describe, can drive people towards alcoholism, womanizing. You're out there trying to find a connection. Yeah. So, yeah. And then also, you have to remember also another part of that is you don't make that much money in the military, but I will tell you that tier one operators do make money, right?

So like your SF guy, if I, correct me if I're wrong, like, was it special? Special forces. Was the Hazardous Duty pay? You get hazardous duty pay overseas and you get pro pay for being SF. Yep. Okay. So in the unit,

and both blue, green and orange get this. All operators get this. So they get the SF pay. At maxed out, I think it's like 450, if I remember correctly. They get, you get your all your everyone's pays,

you get your demo, it pays, everything like that. But then you get AIP, which is my understanding only blue, green, and orange operators get this. And it's $1,000 a month on top of all your other special pays. And so I am a 27-year-old staff sergeant at the time, living in, you know, a metropolitan city and getting a decent amount of BAAH on top of all these, because I probably had about $2,000 in special pays a month.

And on top of my ridiculous BAH, I was a 27-year-old staff sergeant making over six figures, and you cannot get that type of money in my, even when I went to aviation, I took a huge pay cut. And I was a warrant officer, you know? So there's the money because you really can't, you can't replicate that anywhere else in the military, not even like, not even fighter pilots in the Air Force,

whatever get that level of money. And then you can't recreate this job in the civilian world. Like it's very hard. Like you can go to ground branch because that's where most of the guys go, is they eventually go to ground branch, like especially the tactical guys in our unit. They would eventually go to ground branch. and then that's when I had the fateful day

I was about, I think I'd been in the unit about six years and our unit's CW5, who's this absolute legend, who was a Green Beret Ranger in the 80s, switched over, became a helicopter pilot, 1-6th, he was in Black Hawk Down. Anyways, this guy ended up being like the CW5 of our unit. And he liked me,

saw him in the gym one day and he comes up to me and he's like, you know, and he was like this 50-year-old like 55 year old man and dude had a 10 pack like it's just stupid right you know just like I was like bro just just put it away like you like I felt like it was one of the fittest dudes there and he would just literally put me to shame all the time and he used to come up and he'd like fist bump you but he'd like he'd hit you hard with the knuckles right and you do this every single day and so I'm in the gym I'm about to work out and he's like so he's like Joe what's uh what's uh you know what's your plan I'm like oh I'm proud to do legs and he was like no with life you idiot and I'm like oh you know

I'm going to do with everybody else because I'd been a I reached senior senior operative status at that point for I think it's been like a one or two years and like and what everybody did was they they did their like 20 20 25 years whatever and then they all went to ground ranch especially the guys I was in the detachment with and that was that was that was the like that was the life that was the dream right and he comes up to me and he's like he's like do not do that and I'm like why he's like Look at all your seniors. Look at your peers.

All of them are divorced. None of them have, barely any of them have any relationship with their children. He's like, you've done this. Like between group and here, he's like, you've done this. Like, what, over a decade now? He's like, I can tell you, he's like, it doesn't get any better. He's like, the seniority in these jobs doesn't get you any better. He's like, the best part is the first five years.

That's the sweetest part. It's new. It's everything. You get to do everything. And then once you start getting senior status, you would think that you get more freedom. No, that's the exact opposite. So, and then he being a guy who was a former Ranger Greenbrae and now a pilot, he was like, if you ever want to go to flight school. I was like, yeah, who doesn't? He's like, dude, the army will pay.

Like they will, you know, you don't have to pay to get your private license. He's like, go do that. And then, you know, probably within a year of that conversation, you know, I, you know, due to some other like things that went on in the unit that I did that I saw that I didn't like. I was like, I'm out. You know, I put in my like, I was at the 4187. I applied for flight school, warrant. And then, you know, I had to put in an age and time and service waiver and being the oldest person of flight school,

which the first sergeant down there was really happy to tell me. You know, he's like, you're the old man now. That was, yeah, that was some really sage advice that you got. from your salty warrant there, but, you know, he wasn't wrong. No, he wasn't. And actually, his helicopter is actually, if you usually go to the RV Aviation Museum, is the actual helicopter in there and has his name on it. Holy shit.

Like, this guy, this guy is a legend. Yeah, did it all. Yeah, this guy, still a legend to this day. Okay, so you go to flight school and sort of, first off, like, what's your objective in going to flight school? What airframe do you want to be on? What are sort of your goals here going into it? So at this time, it was my understanding.

So it was interesting. So when you go there, when you go to flight school, and if you either come from Ranger Bat, you come from group or you come from one of the tier one units, you are, when you finish flight school, you are going to be allowed the option to go straight to 160. They only give this option for former ranger, you know, whatever, or the tier one guys, right?

And I was told by the two CW-5s, both of them who helped me write, who did my letters of recommendation, they were like, whatever you do, when they give you this option, say no. Do not go to 160th straight out of flight school. And both of these guys were former 160th guys. And they told me they're like,

hey, it's a dog-eat-dog world. He's like, when you go to flight school, they teach you enough to not crash. He's like all this other stuff, like learning how to, you know, to launch guys, do airborne operations,

fast roping, spies, fries. When you show up for one sister, they expect you to know it already. In gravity, you know, they're making an exception,

but that learning curve is so short. It adds a level of stress to your flying that you don't know you need. And when I show up to flight school, there's only one other soft guy there. There's a green beret there. And we actually instantly become friends, right?

And we're sitting there like one of the first days. And I tell him what my CW5 told me. He's like, dude, my CW5 told me the exact same thing. Who his CW5 was also a 160th guy. So it quickly became this thing. But while I was there, you know, if you're familiar, you know, like 160 is sort of become like, you know, like the tier two aviation unit sort of, right? Because like what does Green do, right? They needed a capability.

There was a time when, you know, I think 160 was their operations were getting too slow because they still had this bureaucratic, you know, they're still in the Army, right? And you had officers who would come along and just their speed of doing operations were not fast enough. So what did Green do? They end up developing their own aviation wing. And that aviation wing got so successful that it became, its own separate unit and i believe the colloquial term is the uh uh the northern virginia boys i believe is that the yeah the dev group one i've heard referred to as t w a tini weene airlines

yeah yeah so so obviously knowing this and actually getting to work with them while was at the unit that was like became my goal because i was But I knew that they were obviously not going to accept me right away, nor did I want to. So the goal was to get there and do my, go to my first unit, get my couple years in, and then go and then apply for the Virginia boys. And while I was there, one of my, well, so I did the basic course in the UH72, Okoda. And one of my contracting instructors, we quickly. learned where I was from and he let me know that he this was a side job for him but he's actually from the Virginia boys and he told me and I was so I we had a good conversation and I was like okay

what's the fastest way I can get there right he's like black hawks he's like if you do apaches because there's such a shortage of apaches at least this is what he said at the time was that you will have to do an additional year or two as an Apache pilot before they'll even allow you take the application. If you do Blackhawks, that's the quickest way that you can get there. So that was the reason why. So when I got to my wish list after graduating the basic course, that is why I put it on my, the top of my wish list was Blackhawks. Cool. So. So then you had to go off to UH 60 school? Yes. Went off to UH 60 school. And it's funny because you,

here there is like with any unit you hear generalizations about like what the apache instructors are like what the black hawk instructors like and you for whatever reason you keep hearing these horror stories about the apache's instructors right which end up being quite the opposite because you i find out when you get to the the black hawk portion that the black hawk instructors uh are like the worst like the apache guys are actually the coolest The Chinook guys are, if not as cool as Apache guys, even cooler, right? But I think one of the reasons why the Blackhawk guys are so bitter is because they don't do anything. Like their airframe doesn't do anything well.

And they're like the jack of all trades. But since we've been in Afghanistan, as you know in Afghanistan, they don't have the power to do successful operations. That's why basically only Chinooks do anything. So as a unit commander, what are you going to do? Because at that altitude, you can get like maybe three, four guys with calling equipment on your Blackhawk. So what are you going to request? Do you even request like 20 Blackhawks or like one or two Chinooks? Like it doesn't make any sense.

Right. So I feel like there was a, these guys had a bit of a, you know, some of them literally had a Napoleon complex. But yeah, some of them had like this like, oh, we need to prove ourselves. And it just was this negative attitude. and we quickly learned that the instructors in the black card course were definitely the most difficult. And as you're going through the course, it sounds like you started having some family tragedy also, right? Yeah. So my father at this point had cancer, but then my sister-in-law who helped raise me because my mother died when was 15.

She actually left college, her and my brother, came home and helped raise me. So, like, she's my sister a lot, but I always consider her my sister because she helped raise me. And she died suddenly. And unfortunately, in the exact same way that my mother did when I was 15. And so I went home on emergency leave to be there for everything in the funeral. And then within a year, my father died. So, and I was already having issues with the current flight instructor. who was the flight lead of my Black Hawk flight.

And so I use this as a time to roll out of that class and take care of family stuff. And then when I got put back into course, I randomly got put back into his flight. And within a week or two, I got, had some issues with being accused of parking, created other issues within flight school. and then a combination of my family and a financial situation that was going on with all my real estate investment properties because of COVID, that's probably when I hit rock bottom and hit a level, been depressed in my first time of my life. And we'll talk about this in a bit, but your YouTube channel, you talk a lot about overcoming

some of these mental health issues. what was it you were experiencing at that time and how did you overcome it? Because, I mean, what you're describing, it's not nothing. I mean, this is something that would take the the error out of anyone's wings, I think. Yeah, no, and that's a great question

because this actually ends up being like one of the things that I tell people, especially when they're starting to leave the military, is what I didn't realize at the time, but I learned quickly, is that I had tied my identity to the military, these aspects of my life, to my real estate investment, to my success within the military.

Because at this point, I'd never failed anything. Obviously, not passing waivers, I didn't really, you know, consider that as failing. Right. Every time that someone had given me the shot, I passed it, right? In flight school, I had never, at this point, never failed a test. Technically, I did get, I did fail one flight test in the UH 72, Lakota, but that's only because I fell asleep in the back. The instructor was not happy about it.

So he failed me, even though I passed the flight portion, so I had to retake the assessment. That's neither here nor there. So, and then now, so between my financial, my professional, all these things that I had tied my identity that I was successful were failing. And I had no idea how to deal with failure.

and I shut down completely. I didn't talk to anybody because I was shamed. I was these things. I projected all these things. This is who I was and now it is no longer this. How could I talk to anybody? And it wasn't until I finally, you know, because I don't know if you want me to go into the details

about the plan that I met when I hit rock bottom. Whatever you're comfortable with. So, yeah. So I got a problem because I've already talked about this in my YouTube channel. So I hit rock bottom and I made a plan to commit suicide. Right. And I made a plan. I planned to do it after my best friend's wedding,

who I was, strangely enough, I was a bridesma for her wedding. And the main reason why I didn't do it was actually because of my dog. Because later on I would obviously realize that, you know, taking your own life is one of the selfish things you can do because, you know, you think you're fixing your problems, but you're causing trauma to anybody who's ever loved you, right?

And that's just horrible, right? But this dog, who I'd rescue from the streets of Baltimore, she had nobody else in her life. You know, who was I to, like, leave her in this world when she had nobody? Who would she go to, right? And so her was the main reason I didn't do it. And then every day I was just like, I made a choice. I was like, I'm just going to do one thing that's going to make my life better today.

And then eventually I got out of it. And then you, I think what I didn't know, because it's one of the reasons where this was so hard for me, I had never been depressed my life. I always had a sunny disposition because I'd never experienced it of this. I didn't know what to do. And finally, I started reaching out to people. I started talking to people and realized that it was okay to have done this, right? obviously it was mainly because I didn't follow through with it.

And so every day by day, I did something to make my light better. And then which you quickly realize eventually, you know, when you pull yourself out of this thing, it's sort of, I feel like it rewires your brain chemically a little bit. And you, it's like this shadow that's always behind you. You're always going, that depression is always lingering there. But it's how you perceive. it's how you deal with it you know you understand that like that's not an option and you're you're never going to allow yourself to do that but like it's there you you're lying if it's not like and then

there's like these sadness that you go through and for me I I frame it as this is the story that I one day will tell right if I was ever to write if someone was ever writing a book or movie about my life which I don't think I'd ever do. I'm not that cool. But if they did, what would the viewers at the screen be yelling? What would the people in the movie theater be yelling at the screen right now for me to do, right?

And when you think about that your success is built on failures, that was just this giant failure that would become one of the greatest triumphs, I believe in my life, to get over that particular period of my life. So to the point where I'm actually, it is one of the best things that ever happened to me. because it has turned me into the person that I am today.

And I am so, if later on when we talk about the investigation, if that investigation had happened five years prior, I don't know how I dealt with it. But because this had already happened, my level of don't give a fuck factor was so high that I just didn't care that every, to me, every day after that were bonus days, right? I'm just happy to be alive.

Yeah. You emerged stronger after the fact. Absolutely. Yeah. And so you're kind of trying to beat this thing at the same time. How are you kind of like wrapping up flight school and are you getting assigned to a unit? Yeah. So basically I had to go through this whole process of, you know, I had to write letters to Congress and all these different things.

and, you know, the whole thing was a shit show. But eventually I was able to get out of there. And then I got DCS to Washington, D.C. area. And at this point, I was, because of the things that happened at flight school, I was done with the military. So I was like, I'm just going to write out the rest of my career. Like, because, like, now the concept of, like, you know, doing anything else after that, I was like, I'm done.

So, and then about six months prior, that's when I started the YouTube channel. Because I was like, this is my purpose. Like, this is the one of the things that I wanted to do. And it was something outside of the military too, right? It was something you were doing on your own. Yes. Yeah. And so, and because, I guess one of the catalysts, what I wanted to do this was because I've obviously experienced toxic leadership,

especially, which I never thought I would, especially in ISA. Like there was some definitely some very toxic leaders. It obviously doesn't happen as much, but I feel like when it does, it's very potent. Like it was the few individuals that it were, it was really bad. And I wanted to make videos about toxic leadership, but like to help teach people what real leadership actually looks like. Because I feel like a lot of people actually don't know what real leadership looks like. So that became one of the reasons. And then now that I had this

this where I was able to get past taking my own life and I was on this journey of like you know, I got into Buddhism, stoicism and all these different things and I really kind of like went on this like spiritual journey to like find, you know, to understand my place in this universe.

And what I eventually got to, I was like, I think that I had this innate ability to be able to break things down to retard level because I am, you know, kind of a retard myself. Because I have to break everything's down to layman as far as I got I got stories from free ball school when it came to learning how to do poised exits. They literally had to break it down to retard level for me. And then I'm not afraid to talk about the things that, you know, guys don't want to talk about, especially in these hyper-masculine communities. So I felt like that was my thing. So I started this channel, and that's what I started originally talking about, was the mental health stuff. I was talking about fitness, stoicism.

You know, that's why I called it the Stowing Viking. And then, but people who were then asking me, because I had pictures up of, like, my time of fifth group, a time of flight school, and then, like, time at ISA or whatever. Or, like, the few photos that I did, because I don't really have them any photos from that time for obvious reasons. And people started asking questions like, why did you leave? Right? So and I never said which unit I was from. And so I was like, okay, I see this as a teaching lesson, right? Because so I phrased it.

So I told the story of why I left. And the reason why I left is because, you know, I saw that there was no, there was no future down that route, at least not for 20, 30 years, right? and the moral the story was you can do anything amazing but you don't need to sacrifice your entire personal life for the rest of your life

because of it right and if you really think about it and this is the advice that I tell everybody know what you want in the military go get it do it for five years and then leave and take that experience to the civilian world because they will reward you

you know for in many different ways and you also have the freedom to like quit like that's that's an amazing power which you don't get in the military right so i made this video and it at that point i think my videos had maybe 500 000 views this thing within like two days was like 100 000 views and and then i started making more videos and people liked it and people were asking about selection so i i kind of made a video selection about you know how the differences between tier two and tier one selections advice of how to pass Tier 2 and Tier 1, never gave any operational details, never gave away any secrets,

never still named, never named the unit. But people in the comments were starting to guess, you know, they hear Tier 1 unit. They know. They know. And I'm like, look, bro, like, I wish. But no, that's not the, that's not the one I went. So I started to imply through the comments that it was from a different one, right? So everything's fine.

The channel's starting to get big. I get barbell apparel reaching out to me, wanting to be a sponsor, which was cool because I've already been wearing these guys' clothes. And right around that time, I get this ominous phone call from my command. And they're like, hey, we need you to come in to work immediately and come see the commander. And anybody who's been in the military knows that is not a good sign. That never results in anything good. That's always that. So I show up and they whisked me directly into this conference room.

And, you know, my company commander, she's, you know, she's, you know, I've been in the Army for a couple years. And she's obviously really worried. And I've only ever seen a smile in this woman's face. I'm like, man, you okay? She's like, you know, like, I don't do it. She wouldn't really, she couldn't tell me what was going on. So they slide this piece of paper in front of it. And it says that I am the investigated by the Army Criminal Investigation Division for the possible, for the possible disclosible.

of classified information. And I think you're probably aware of this, Joe, but there's sort of a larger context happening in the special operations community going after all kinds of veterans who have spoken on podcasts or spoken in interviews or whatever the case may be. About a year and a half ago, Delta sent out a letter to all of their members. And the letter, you know, it kind of starts off where it's like, you know, warning people, you know, be careful about not disclosing classified information, which I think that's within their wheelhouse, right? Nothing wrong. Absolutely.

But then they ask veterans of the unit to socially shame other veterans of the unit that speak out in ways that they find inappropriate. And that is completely beyond the purview of some commander at some unit at first. Fort Bragg to try to suppress the First Amendment rights of private citizens out there in America. And I just had another friend. He worked for one of the J-Sox support units. And they came after him this last week because of an interview he did with us about a year ago. And there's nothing they can do, as we'll talk about with your case. There's nothing they can really do to him because he didn't say anything wrong. He did not divulge classified information. But what they do is try to socially shame you within the community.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, and I already started to see this even prior because I think I saw Sean Ryan talking about it, you know, doing these interviews and suddenly, you know, they're like, oh, you have to take our videos down. And, you know, as Sean Ryan said, is like, you know, you can't, like, you're allowed to talk about your lives. Obviously, don't give any operational details. So, and one of the reasons that I chose the path of my channel, ways, which was one not to be about operational details. And I wanted to be about stoicism, philosophy, life lessons, talking about the hard truths and these, you know, suicide, mental health.

Because especially when I was in the unit, even when I was in aviation, if you went to mental health, that was the end of your career, right? You couldn't go. It wasn't until like a couple years later, like towards the end of my career, that it was okay to go to mental health. So that's what I want to talk about. And I never wanted to be about the unit because, like, one, I don't think I'm that cool anyways. And two, like, what am I going to talk about anyways?

No, I was like, no, we're good. So, yeah, so the intent of the channel was, you know, not to be about the operational details, you know, because one, I don't think I'm that cool anyway. And then two, like, what are you actually going to talk about? Like, it's such a murky road, didn't want to do any of that type of stuff. And so the focus of the channel was, you know, obviously on the philosophy. the stoicism, you know, making the mental health especially because, you know, when I was in the unit and aviation, if you went to mental health, that was a death sentence. Like your career was over.

And luckily in the last couple years right before retired, it definitely shifted. That that be okay. But it definitely, like we had a guy while I was in flight school who went to mental health. He was kicked out within a week. Jeez. And obviously in the unit, you definitely couldn't go to mental health. Like that was a death sentence on a death sentence. So, but, you know, I did my due diligence and I researched all the stuff and whether

the unit likes it or not. There's plenty of books, which I also have a funny story because I actually showed up to ISA selection because at this time in 2010, I think the only book at that time was killer elite. Yeah. And you have to remember, this is 2009, 2010, right? And what, there was very little known about the unit, right? So I'll quickly go into this real quick because I think it's a little,

it might be a little pertinent. At that time, it was like whispers of what orange and green were. Like, everybody knew what green was, but they're like, what is orange? And the thing that I was told by a green beret in the company I was in, and because he was interested to go to like orange, actually. He was like, if you want to be John Rambo, you go to green. If you want to be James Bond, you go to orange, right? And obviously, that's could down farther.

Like, that was such a disappointment. of it, but you know, it is to a truth. There is some truth to it, that type of job. But when I, but when you're applying, right, that no later did they actually say the name of the unit, right? So you're applying, so you think you're applying for this job. So I show up to this selection, and I'm still not 100% sure,

unit I'm trying out for. So I bring two books, I bring the book Killerly, and I bring the book, The Mission of the Man of Me by Pete Laver, which is always one of my favorite books. I like how he taught life lessons in that book, which is sort of one of the things that modeled how I did my channel. So the first week that you do everything,

it's a selection before you go off to the actual real selection, is all like PT test, interviews, CI, and you're sitting down, you're doing polygraphs, all that and stuff. I get called into one of my CI interviews one day, and he's like, hey, you know, you like to read? And I was like, yeah, I like to read. He's like, did you bring any books with you? I was like, yeah, I brought some books.

He's like, cool, cool. What books did you bring? I was like, ah, you know, like, you know, Mission Amendment me and some other books. And he's like, what other book? And I'm like, I remember having a conversation like an hour prior with some other dude who was in there talking about how like killer elite was like, you know, possibly about this unit. And so he's like, you know, I was like, oh, I'm just reading this book, Killer Elite. And he's like, what is that book about? I was like, well, supposedly it's about this unit, right?

And he's like, well, do you think that's a good idea to read this? And then that immediately piqued my interest. It's like, why does he not want me to know? So I leaned in and I was like, should I not be reading this book? Like, is there a reason? And he just like looks at me coldly and he's like, you should not be reading that book while you're here. So I get out of that interview. Oh, no, the last thing I say is like, well, wouldn't you want to know as much about

the unit that you're supposedly And he looks at me coldly again He goes Just don't read that book while you're here So I immediately run straight to my bunk And I was like halfway through it And I've never read a book so fast In my entire life

And when I was done I slammed it down And I was like, I've never been so disappointed in my life There was nothing about selection It was like the driest book That I've ever fucking read And there's nothing in there right But they made this whole thing So going back to I did all this research

I made sure that everything that I would possibly talk about was already publicly available information. And I made very careful that I did imply any names. I used the most outed names within the unit, which was ISA and TFO. But, you know, apparently they're not on the same page of believing that that's okay to talk about. So how did this investigation against you shake out? They're saying that your use of these terms is classified information that you can't reveal publicly. Yeah.

So what ended up happening is, you know, through unofficial, unofficial avenues, I was informed that, one, my former unit was chain it. leadership was in contact with my current chain and command, and it was implied to me that me posting any sort of information, even remotely relating to the unit, was a bad precedent and that I, they should maybe, you know, made example of that they should pursue as much as they can within their legal capabilities. And then I learned about a week later from a similar unofficial source that the shift went from,

they realized that nothing I had talked about was actually directly classified. They were now trying to see if they could put sort of an aggregate of me placing unclassed sources together and then like infirming things that that would actually be could be they could find some sort of you know charge within there but that uh luckily that line of thinking uh did not work out for them and ultimately you know I was not charged with anything I was given at the end of two months I was called in and you obviously there there was four options that

could add me. One, I could have been charged criminally. Two, I could have been charged under UCMJ. And then three is a Gomar, which is a general officer memorandum of reprimand, I believe is the correct full term. And everybody who knows a Gomar that is essentially a strongly worded letter that goes into your permanent profile. And of course, nothing at all. Scotch free. Everybody agrees, hey, everything's good. Unfortunately, I'm not that lucky. So I show up. and I receive a go mar. And it's a very vaguely worded letter just basically saying that they were disappointed

and I used poor judgment when posting on social media. And that's basically all it said. So you're allowed to do a rebuttal. You have seven days through a rebuttal. But the good thing is, is when you're allowed to do the rebuttal, you are legally allowed to have all the investigative documents. So they handed me the documents.

And I have to word this very careful. When I was given the documents by a member of the staff of the brigade team, I was cautioned on how severe my response should be or lack thereof. And if I was to resist that there would be consequences. Retaliation is the word they're avoiding saying. Yeah, so yeah, there was a lot of implications within this conversation. But I knew from my unofficial source, I already knew that they were, they were, if they could grow whatever, they were trying to find, they were digging.

Yeah. And so I knew at this point, like, what a bluff, right? And I told the guy who told me this, right, who was a member of the staff. And I told him very politely, I was like, if they could have, they would have. So I went home and I Googled. because so one majority of the stuff on this document was redacted but you've been in the unit long enough you know the terms you can you can tell what's under the redacted portions and I could tell that the two things that they were upset about was the use of one that acknowledging that I was even in the

unit which didn't make any sort of sense because I won't go too much in it but when you leave the unit, you're actually on your ERB, they finally put the existing acronym of the unit. Yeah. And you come out of the Daser and everything else. Exactly. So you're allowed to acknowledge that you were at an SMU, right? Obviously, you don't want to go into details and you avoid using its current name or any of the last like five or whatever. You know, so, you know, but, you know, people know enough, right?

Like, they know what's in that area. They know what unit used to be. They generally know what you're talking about. So I go, and then the other thing was using the term ISA, which surprised me the most because if you look at how much literature there is out using the term ISA, which is obviously the unit's official original name. So I went home and I got on Google. And within two minutes, I Googled members of ISA.

And the plethora of profiles that came up, one, surprised me. And with the most interesting, the top of all these profiles, not only was actually a guy who was my unit commander while I was there. And actually, I did lead one mission as a team leader, and he was actually the unit commander while I was leading that team. So I actually had to do video chats with this guy every single week. So for that to be the guy that popped up. And then when I opened his army profile, like on an army official website,

of all the things it could have said, right, it said not only was did he attend ISA selection of all the names that could use. It also said that he was the commander of ISA. And actually right before this interview, I actually looked up and verified that it's still up. And it not only did it verify that he went to ISA selection and he was the commander of ISA, it gave the exact dates that he was, he did it, right? So I put this all in my rebuttal. Why is it classified when you say it, but not classified when some officer says it.

Exactly. So I have a personal theory about that. So if you notice in certain units, there is sort of a double standard. Oh, yeah. And, you know, there's various different reasons. why certain people. And, you know, I think it goes back to, like, you know, and for anybody who's been in the military long enough,

especially in soft, there is definitely, like, for example, when it comes to awards, right? Everybody knows that the higher rank you are, usually the higher rewards you get, you know? Like, if, like, an E6 was to do something that could merit a bronze star, he may not get it. He might get an R-com with the V device. But that major who was sitting back in the fob,

oh, he's getting a, he's getting a, he's getting a broad star for sure right and so i feel like there is one there's like this good old boys club which there always has been and then it's a combination of certain level of rank that certain people get away with these things like you know there's been i think it like at least as my count there's at least four books just specifically about the unit uh and i actually know personally like two of them who wrote them and uh you know one of them is now the director of counterterrorism or was. You mean, I don't know if he's still.

You mean NCTC? Yeah. So, so definitely there was like us. And I also knew in the way that I left the units, I was not, there was definitely not the biggest, some people were not the biggest fan of me. Like, and I had this innate ability where we talked about earlier. You know, I have a face and people want to punch.

apparently. And so, and I've come to terms of this, right? Like people, I rub people the wrong way for whatever reason. There's multiple different reasons. It doesn't matter. So, so I, I finished this rebuttal and I send it to my company commander. And I'm proud because not only did I find this documentation, I had, um, uh, I had all the other U-R-alls and resources that, um, that I had done my due diligence before I even started the channel. So I gave all the books, all the references, everything, put it all in a rebuttal, and I sent it to my company commander. And I was really proud of this.

Like in my mind, there was nowhere that they would keep this going on. I, my company commander, like, hey, did you get the rebuttal? And she was like, yes, but we need to talk about it. because I was like really happy to hear what she thought of it. So I went in the next day. She takes me and she tells me, I was like, ma'am, did you like the rebuttal?

She's like, I did. I thought it was awesome. You did a great job. But the brigade commander is furious. I'm like, what do you mean? She's like, they're claiming it's spillage. Like, what do you mean it's spillage? She's like, because you used his name in ISA in the same email,

not only are they pissed off about it. They have confiscated. mine and First Sergeant's computers because... And she was at this point, she was completely on my side, and she was just like, this whole thing is so ridiculous. And basically, it was a knee-jerk reaction because they were frustrated with their inability to charge me. Yeah, yeah.

And obviously, if it had been spillage, they would have charged me immediately. And obviously, after other than me, my company manager telling me what happened. I never heard anything about that. It's very hard to charge somebody for spillage. You know, if you want to explain that term to folks, I mean, that means like inadvertent disclosures, right? Exactly. Yeah.

And because obviously, you can't call it spillage when it's on an Army official website. Yes, exactly. It would have been one thing if they're not been. and then I took this information put together. And that's spillage because then I put two things together, which other people wouldn't. But it was on an Army official website. So that's why it wasn't spillage.

But they were just so upset. And they may not have known. It may have like to them, they're like, oh my God, you have an, this guy's nameing a commander. And even though it's said where I found it, they may, you know, I'll give them the benefit of doubt because this particular company, this brigade commander was not, you know, he's not from an SMU. He may not know. But that was their knee-jerk reaction. They literally confiscated, as far as I know,

destroyed those computers just because they opened the email on those computers. And yeah, so I left. And, you know, I never heard anything else behind that. And then, but that was not quite the end of that. So I was given permission to start posting again. And this happened around October 1st. So prior to the investigation, I actually had a good relationship with the senior command at the unit.

And I knew that there was a pending family financial issue that was going to come probably around November, December. And my original retirement date was November 1st. So I reached out to them and I was like, hey, can I extend it four months just to get on the backside of holidays? Can I go to February 1st? And they're like, absolutely no problem. Because all it does is requires your brigade commander's decision. And everybody told me, we're cool. So this happened about two weeks prior to the investigation.

And then when the investigation, and when they, you know, they handed me the sheet. I was actually very confident. I actually originally laughed when they gave me the document. And my company was like, aren't you worried about this? I was like, no, ma'am. I was like, I knew that there was a possibility this might happen. But I did my due diligence. I know I haven't talked about anything in the class.

We're good. And they tell me at that meeting that they're going to sit on my extension until the investigation. Once the investigation's done, they're cool. They'll send it up. Everything's great. So the investigation finishes around October 1st, and they, through multiple different people, they lead me to believe that it's going up, it's going to get signed. It wasn't until about a week prior, because anybody who retires know that usually between your

terminal leave, usually get at least a month of like three time away from work, right, when you retire. and I find out a week and I'm not ready to retire I think I'm retiring March or February 1st because I've been told multiple occasions and they're like oh by the way

we're not signing your thing you retire in a week totally nuts and I was like oh my God like you've got to be kidding and then I tried and even the civilian who was actually who did my final out processing

he tried until the day of. Like he actually told them on the day I was supposed to my final out. He actually told me. He's like, and he's told, he told my command. He's like, if you sign this this morning, he's like, I have, even though it was the government shut down, he's like, I know the guy who approves this. I'll have that approved by lunch. And you'll, and it'll be extended to February 1st. They refused. Wow. And then my company commander to, to her credit, she did. She's like, she told me. She's like, she called me right after I did my final act. She's like, we failed you.

what happened here was not right. We failed you as an organization. And she's like, it's going in my AAR or whatever her, or her command requirement survey that she was going to do that year. She was a reporter. Whether she did or not, you know, I don't actually doubt. It doesn't matter at this point anymore. You know, it's big of her to at least call you and tell you that.

Yeah, which I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Joe, I think we got a couple questions from the Patreon folks for you. T those up I thought you know When I called you up about doing this interview I mean I think I said something like You know Joe if you're not incarcerated right now

I'd love to do this interview And if you are we can do it from prison You know there's a possibility Yeah It would probably get better views to be honest It's kind of a shame You and the hamburger outfit With the black and white stripes

Yeah Yeah so Yeah go ahead What do we got, Dee? All right, we got one from JJ. What do people get wrong about TFO? So I would say that one of the things of people is that the, because obviously their original job was to support green and blue, right?

And obviously they started as, you know, the Army's version of CIA because mostly it was a human organization. And granted, it was, I think it was 80s when Colonel Jerry King created it. I think it was like 80 or 81 when he created. Yeah, yes. And at that time, Siggint wasn't really much of a thing. Like SIGET was just written videos, right? And then when the unit really started to like make its business, like make money, like they were the pioneers especially like they, the SIGGIT crushed.

And so they became this like full intelligence spectrum organization. And they became so successful, which was one of the reasons. that they started doing their own operations. And now they're more of a, the niche that they have tried to find is, one, because green and blue really doesn't, don't need them in it, that they are this like, this multi-theater like world level intelligence organization, that that's what they try to be as like their own, they run their own independent operations. You know, if they can get intel back to the greater J-Soc community, they can.

but they are a lot they're very independent uh nowadays and i think we got one more yep uh how have you seen the operation operational preparation of the environment change over time they got lost you oh sorry how have you seen operational preparation of the environment change over time operational so it is definitely changed and it has definitely changed with technology so And I can go for everyone with this for a couple different ways. So from a tactical side of things, right, obviously implementing drones and other things like that. And also from a force protection as our abilities to conduct force protection, like just from the second side of things, became very limited as technology increased. and our ability

like for example I eventually in the unit I went back to Iraq like later on during the ISIS invasion and it was one of the first Americans back in and what we were doing six years prior

we couldn't even do a fraction of what we were doing there and so we had to come up literally one of the things that I did is I actually ended up getting a word for this I actually helped create a new piece of equipment that the NSA ended up manufacturing for that particular mission. And then the combination of us doing SIGA and also combining clan skills and the

human side of things, which then technology from an alias standpoint of view, you know, biometrics started to change. and you had Ancestry.com, you had 23 and me, which you're obviously explicitly told not to do for obvious reasons. And so it changed the way that we looked at the world and the way that we could do operations because it just, it wasn't the old school like 80s and 90s. We had to incorporate the technology. And then everything was becoming so digital, but also in such small form factors that you couldn't even detect when people were using

particular technology and you had like RFI guess sniffers and then you know everybody's heard of a Faraday cage right we basically started in case we were like Ironman like completely encased in Faraday cages of like everything that you could protect and you know we literally had to create SOPs which I think was one of the cool things

because we were on the cutting edge of like these intelligent operations And we did have, especially when I was there, we had such a good relationship with the agency. And one of the things that we ended up doing and why we had such a close relationship with the agency is if anybody understands the different types of authorities, like Title 10, Title 40, one of the reasons we started running and gunning with them was because we fall under DOD. They don't. And in certain situations, there were loopholes where we could do things. that they couldn't and vice versa. So we found that there was this tandem relationship

that we could find loopholes between the two organizations. And so we actually built a really good. So I actually spent a lot of time in CISA spaces and a lot of different emphases throughout the world, which to be honest, those were some of outside of the tactile stuff, some of my favorite missions. Yeah, ISA is an interesting unit in the sense

that you guys can conduct covert operations, clandestine operations or just normal overt military operations. Yeah. I don't think there are too many people that can do that. No, there's not. And I think that's, you know, one of the things that people confuse, like they think RRC and ISA are very similar organizations. And then that's like the big difference is one, you know, I don't think RSC is nearly close to the size as ISA is. No. And has the reach. But also the clans, side of things and the covert side of things is like where we separate and we do that

RRC doesn't really do that much of. And actually, I will say this, we did, I never operationally worked with RSC, but I did a number of training exercises with RRC from the tactical attachment. And I want to say they are some of the most professional guys outside of CAG. I would say that RRC is probably one of the most professional organizations I've ever worked with. Yeah, they're wired tight. Yeah. There's just something about Rangers in general

that I just think, like, my advice to anybody, if you want to go to Delta, don't, I would say go to Ranger and then go to Delta. Like, if you want to go to SF cool, but I think you learn the greatest skills that you need to go to Delta from the Ranger Bad. Yeah, man. Ranger Battalion's awesome.

We got one more, Dave. It's funny. It was a question. about ISA and RRC interfacing and you literally just answered it. He just answered it. Okay. Yeah. So we definitely interfaced on the tactical side of things, which, you know, we did a number

of free fall jumps together. We did a couple different. They were all training exercises. But yeah, they are definitely a very professional organization. You know, when you operate with blue and green, look, and I don't want to throw I'm on the bus, but especially when you deal with blue, right? I will put it this way. I went to, so I got to, I obviously I worked with them and I was on their George cycle,

but the most, the first time I worked with them was actually in Free Fall Jump Master course. And in Freefall Jumpmaster there, one, so they actually don't, so both green and blue don't send their, so their sicken guys are support guys, right? So they don't go to Freefall. like our singing guys are actual like operatives like they're not support side right so that's one of the biggest differences and when you when you show up there when i went to free fall jump master obviously there's there's singing guys never get to go to free fall um so i'm there and the the free fall course is you got the frogmen or your salters right and then you got your boat guys yeah the swick

and i have never seen a like two groups of people who hate each other more than Frogmen and boat guys. Literally, I went there, I was the only ISA student during this course, and we brought one of my mentors who was actually, he was an instructor, so he actually helped instruct the course. We literally just sat there and we watched these two just basically rip each other in half. Like we're doing like JMPIs and these guys are calling each other like almost going to blows on a daily basis. And dude, and the boat guys just hate, hate the frogman.

Like that was my experience. And then the support guys there were just like, they lived in fear from their assaulters. And then you go to Green and you're like, these dudes are my best friends. Like they love these guys, right? So, yeah, it was very interesting. And then how did the RRC bros compare to that? They were very similar to CAD. Like, they definitely.

were like, these guys are enablers, right? And especially when they started going to, especially at CAG, when they started going to the Intelligence Squadron, because you will hear this a lot, especially from Miss Tiggin, right? And it's like par for the course, especially from 18 alphas. You'll have an 18 alpha, it will come up to you and be like, hey, can you do this wizardry, right? And I'm like, sir, that's not how RF energy works, right?

You have to explain it to them. Like that's not how any of this works, right? And then when you started having the Kagassaltors go, and they start learning, you know, they learn human, they learn SIGAN, they learn everything, OSINT, you know, computer stuff. And then when they start going, and they go back to the teams, and now they're working along their SIGA guys,

and they're like, oh, I understand how the machine works, and they understand its limitations. So their troop commanders were no longer giving these ridiculous requests, like, hey, can you hit the satellite, beam it down, and then get, you know, all this stuff and his wife's stuff, and then, you know, get me some, you know, all these different things. Like, no, sir, I can't do that. And so they just developed this really good professional relationship. And they really, they really started to appreciate their support guys.

And they appreciate all their support guys. They treat them so well. as far as any organization I've ever seen. So you had a pretty wild ride there in the military, especially on the exit out. Now you're recently retired. Tell us a little bit about where you're at today, what you're doing,

what you'd like to do in the near future. So I have a couple different things that I'm doing. So right now, I really think that my purpose is to help other people. Like my goal of my YouTube channel is to add value to people's lives. For example, when I released this video about this investigation, the whole final third of it is what good leadership looks like, right?

Because I can sit here and complain all day about what they did, whatever. I don't care. Like, if anything, another life lessons, another story that I get to tell. Like, these guys made me a stronger person because of it, right? And makes good content. You know, the video is not doing too shabby. So, but I would be remiss if I didn't show people what good leadership is, right? Because why do we have talks to leadership?

Because those people were never showed, were never demonstrated by their leaders, what good leadership looks like, right? So every video that I make is, did I add value? That is the thing that I asked myself in every single video. Am I adding values to my life, right? And then I also, from the mentality, I stay away from how many views I can be. I don't care. If someone comes back with a single comment like, hey, this helped me, that video was worth it. Like, that's all that matters to me. Right. And I feel like it's like my calling because, you know, I'm able to break these things down. I'm a critical thinker. And I have an ability to, especially when it comes to things that are geopolitical,

to look at them from a strict history point of view without going into the political. Like I just released a video about understanding Somalia, and I was able to do it explain why their culture has sort of embraced... Anarchy? Yes. And fraud and scam without going into sort of a political thing, right?

And I'm a subject matter expert when actually special when it comes Iran, and I speak Farsi. So my next video that I'm actually doing, doing his understanding or wrong, but in the same format. And almost all the comments that I got from that video was like, hey, you really broke this down. I really appreciate it. So I'm putting my full focus right now into this.

I am also at the same time. I am randomly, I am actually studying to become a private wealth advisor. Cool. If essentially this doesn't work out. Yeah, that's awesome. So I'm in the process of studying for my series 66 right now. Is that, like, you manage, like, a wealth fund for a wealthy family? Yes.

So the difference, and I, obviously, I didn't know this until one of my friends got me into this, is there's, when people think of, like, wealth advisors, right? Most people fall under what's called, known as core wealth. And then private wealth, depending on the area, there's a minimum amount in an account in most places in the United States at a minimum $5 million. But if you go to like New York, it could be like 20, 30 million dollars. It has to be in that account to be considered private wealth.

So, but the interesting thing about it is it's because almost everybody who's in private wealth, their money has been in private wealth. Like they've had brokers, right? So you make money off of essentially annuities. Like you manage their money, you get 1%. Right. But these people, private wealth, these people already have wealth advisors, right? So what ends up becoming, which is the difference with core wealth, it's a sales job.

So the first couple of years, you join a team, and then your first job is just to go get accounts. And you have to go get them from other people who already have wealth advisors. So it's a sales job. And they structure it. Like if you end up getting a job through, let's just say, your broker through like Morgan Stanley, they structure it that the first year they pay you a salary. But then after the second year, your salary goes away. And because they want is like, so it's like a doggy dog role. I almost think of it's like the tier one of private wealth managers because if you don't make it like you're out if you if you don't have those sales skills you're not going to make it and so they design it to weed people out which I find fascinating.

So it's like it's definitely the hardest of all. But if you are able to make it every private wealth advisor that I know and I know a bunch in Loudoun County, which is horse country out here in Virginia, which is randomly the richest country in the richest county in the United States, all the guys who are probably. Bible wealth advisors have the best work-life balance ratio. These guys make money. They work like two hours a day. And then all they do is whatever they want. It's awesome. So tell folks out there listening where they can find you on YouTube, where they can find

you on social media. Yeah. So my, my YouTube channel is the Stoic Viking. The Instagram, like, it's also the Stoic Viking. I think it's the Stoic Viking 2025. And so basically that's where I push majority of content. YouTube is like my main goal is the long-form content because there I'm allowed to, I have the ability to talk about things in long-form,

which I feel like those are the issues that need to be talked about, whether it's mental health, fitness, health, nutrition, just overall philosophy going into life, how to deal with the hardships of life and grief, all these different things. I want to talk about the things that nobody wants to talk about and give a guys an avenue and also create a community where people are positive.

Like one thing that you're never going to see me do, I'm never going to get involved in a Veto drama. Even if someone calls me out for claiming I did or did not something, I'm not responding. I don't care. You do you, bro. We're over here. And honestly, in any of my lives,

if I hear anybody start talking bad about somebody else, I give them one warning, if not they're kicked out because that's we're about positivity. If we call out a problem, we're creating a solution. We're talking about it, right? Because the only way you get rid of a problem like toxic leadership is we ourselves have to promote what good leadership looks like because that's the only way this ever is going to change. Is it going to change overnight? No.

But all we can do is do the right thing. Be the better person. And altogether, that's how we make this life a better world and how we found it. Joe, before we get going tonight, is there anything else you'd like to say? Is there any other topics we haven't covered that you'd like to hash out? Yeah, that's a good question. I'll probably think of something like two minutes after we hang up. It's okay.

We can do it again sometime if you want. And we'll also, for our listeners, we'll have links down the description to all of Joe's social media and YouTube and all that other stuff. You'll be able to find it down there. Absolutely. And once again, I appreciate it. It's been an honor. And you are officially my first podcast since I started this whole thing. So we can't think of anybody better than the investigative Green Beret Ranger turned investigative journalist himself. Oh, no, thank you for that. I mean, likewise, we try to avoid a lot of the vet bro drama, keep it relatively positive about people's careers and relatively apolitical. and yeah it's just not worth anyone's time really to get into all that but again thank you appreciate your time joe and everyone else out there we will see you again next time absolutely thank you again sir i want to tell all of you today about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both

the team house podcast the eyes on podcast and the high side news outlet which i run with shan naylor The newsletter is going to be once a week. It's going to come into your inbox and you're going to get the most current podcasts on Aizon and the Team House and whatever's topical or current on the high side. So it's another way for us to get the information out to you as social media algorithms are pretty iffy and you never really know what you're going to get. So this is a once a week email. It'll slide into your inbox and it will have the greatest hits of that week. It's really good. Checking it out.

The website for it is teamhousepodcast.kitt.com slash join. Teamhousepodcast.com slash join. You go there and you enter into your email list or you enter your email into the little thing on the website and you're good to go and that'll be it. So we really appreciate your support and hope you'll consider signing up. Where's the link? The link will also be down in the description if you'll look at. for it there. And that's teamhousepodcast.kittkiloindiatango.com backslash join.